Total Beauty Mystery Box Review

Last month, I heard about Total Beauty offering a mystery box of cosmetics for $26, so I figured I'd take the plunge and order one. It's not a subscription box, just a one-time mystery box. I also had a promo code that saved me 15%, so my total was actually only $22.10. It shipped out the day I ordered it and I got it 3 days later. Not bad.

Opening the box. I was sad to see polish floating around loose - sounds like a recipe for disaster there. I know a couple people on Facebook said at least one of their polishes arrived busted and all over.

The first things I dug out were 4 Revlon Colorstay polishes ($6.39 each) - a nude, a light peach, a dark green, and a bright orange. I've become a bit of a polish snob trying out all these nice brands supplied in subscription boxes, so these weren't terribly exciting to me. They were all very thin and required at least 2 coats. The green was probably my favorite and one I might actually use in the fall/winter. The orange was ok, but it's so bright, I can't see myself using it for anything other than Halloween. The 2 light colors were just so blah. I just don't know if I'll use them.

I didn't have polish on that day, so I actually swatched them!

Next up, products I personally hate finding in boxes, were lipsticks. 2 Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butters in Pink Lemonade and Sorbet (prices seem to vary, but you can apparently get them at Target for about $6) along with an NYX Color Lip Balm in Thank You ($5.33). The weird thing about these was that neither brand's site had these available to purchase. The Revlon site referred me over to drugstore.com, which then said it was no longer available. I finally found them on Amazon and Target's websites, but the price was highly variable, leading me to believe these are being or are already discontinued. The NYX one isn't even on their site anymore - I can't tell if it was discontinued entirely or if it's just repackaged as the Butter Lip Balms. Either way, these all seem like old products. I don't like getting old products. They were all fairly non-dry feeling, which is a plus, but as usual, lipsticks just aren't my thing.

Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butters in Sorbet and Pink Lemonade

NYX Color Lip Balm in Thank You.

Swatches of NYX Thank You, Revlon Pink Lemonade, and Revlon Sorbet

Rounding out the Revlon product dump, was a Colorstay 16-hour Eyeshadow palette in Sea Mist ($5.99). This was just disappointing. There was very little color payoff and it took so many swipes just to get it to show up. Blech. I forgot to take a picture of the product itself, for some reason, but you can see it at the link (I'm not sure I can just copy and paste the drugstore.com picture here) or in my box display picture at the end of the post.

Revlon ColorStay 16-hour Eyeshadow in Sea Mist. The nude at the top doesn't even show up on my skin! The other colors are ok, if you don't mind spending 5 minutes applying to get it to show up.

Moving away from Revlon, I got 2 samples of Ferro mineral blush in Suzie and Terra Cotta (full size are $17 each). I'm not sure of these sizes, but I'm pretty sure they aren't full size. Blushes are usually at least 10g, and these look like 5g jars maybe half filled. Since I don't know even what they call full size (it doesn't seem to be listed on their site), it's hard to guess the value of these. It looks like they have a foundation sample kit for $20 that comes with up to 7 samples, which appear to be the same size, so we'll value this set of 2 samples at $5.71. These are fine, but I didn't see a whole lot of difference between the 2 colors. One was a bit more bronzey I guess. I've liked Ferro in the past, but these didn't wow me.

Ferro mineral blushes in Terra Cotta and Suzie

Swatches: Susie and Terra Cotta

Next up was an NYX Roll On Shimmer ($4) in Platinum. I actually like these. As such, I actually already have almost every color of it, including this one. <Wah wah> Oh well.

NYX Roll On Shimmer

My final 3 products were an Honest lip balm in Sweet Orange Vanilla ($3.32), a small jar of Ziaja Natural Olive Cream Light Formula (full size is $8.99, this is not full size - let's be generous and call it half-size for a value of $4.50), and a foil packet sample of Chella Exfloliating Cleanser (full size is $35 - a foil packet is obviously not full size and this is valued at maybe $1). I already have the lip balm, but I think it's awesome and, bonus!, the scent I got is my favorite! I'm slightly unclear on where the Ziaja cream is supposed to be applied - it doesn't say face or body anywhere on the product or website! I assumed face based on the size, but even the so-called "light formula" is super thick. Maybe it's not for face? It was very moisturizing, but I definitely couldn't use it at any time other than night - it left me pretty greasy looking. Finally, the Chella was interesting. Its smelled strongly of cucumber and although I thought I followed the directions, it turns out it needs more than a little water to "activate" it. I put water on my face before the cleanser, but it was very thick and goopy and didn't really spread well across my face without adding more to each part of my face. I think this would work well in the shower. My face did look nice after cleaning with it though. But really, one foil packet  with definitely only enough for one use inside was not enough for me to decide if I like it enough to plunk down $35 for a full size container of it. That's the problem with foil packets.

Honest Lip Balm in Sweet Orange Vanilla

Ziaja Natural Olive Cream "light" formula

Chella Exfoliating Cleanser

Total Beauty Mystery Box

I hate to say it, but this was a really disappointing box. I'm glad I had at least a small discount, but even then, I would rather save the $22.10 for something else. Not enough variety or quality. I calculated an approximate value of $67.41, which, while over the $22.10 I spent, was not the $75 they promised, nor was it $67.41 or even $22.10 I'd personally spend. So, that's it for me and Total Beauty Mystery Boxes.

(And just a disclaimer: I bought this box myself and was not compensated for this review in any way. All opinions are my own.)